


Steve Harrington is Royalty

by OrphanBlue



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Harrington, Complex trauma, Eventual Smut, Flashbacks, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Steve-centric, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-01-27 23:08:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12592600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrphanBlue/pseuds/OrphanBlue
Summary: To Steve Harrington, the guy who fought literal monsters, Billy Hargrove is just another pain in the ass, not even worth thinking about. That is, until he finds out that Billy doesn't remember that night at the Byers house...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Billy is a total fucking dick, and this fic isn't trying to hide that or make any excuses, just building on a theory/headcanon.

Steve was relaxed in his car, music humming away, it was something new, he didn’t know it well, but it was good, softer than the music he usually listened to. It was a new tape he’d made his dad pick up for him on his latest business trip. Tricking his dad into buying him music every time he went away had to be the most genius move of his childhood. And now it was just this kind of deal they’d slipped into, his dad would buy him music from where ever he went, and Steve wouldn’t make him feel guilty. The music was mostly okay too.

But this band, from England Steve thought, was different, the music was sad and angry and so soft. So was the car seat – soft, not angry. Steve closed his eyes.

\- The ground beneath his feet was squishy, the walls where slimy. His heart thudded loudly in his ears. They were coming. He could hear them. They were so close, and he didn’t have time to get Dustin out. He didn’t have time. He could see the getting closer. No time. He could feel them on him. They weren’t running past. Not this time. -

Steve jerked himself awake, shuddering and panting. He fumbled for the door handle and pretty much threw himself out of the car, losing his balance and landing on all fours of the gravel. He gasped in the cold night air. Opening his eyes for just a moment and looking down at his fingers as they clawed the ground. It was hard. _Real_. Shitty music was drifting out of the school gymnasium, mixing badly with the moody English band still playing in his car. The cold made him shiver. _Good_. He was back in the real world. _Real._

“Why the fuck are you making out with the ground?”

Now, did the real world have to be just such a bitch? Did it have to go and send Billy fucking Hargrove right when Steve was feeling like fish being dragged out of the water by the hook in its mouth?

He sprung to his feet, ready to say something utterly crushing, then realizing that this would involve his brain working enough to find words and string them together in a way that not only made sense, but was also somewhat cool. _Nope_. He was still too shaken for that, so Steve just stared for a moment, gathering some pertinent seeming thoughts:

_Billy Hargrove._ _Cold._ _Snowfake Ball._ _Broken nose…_ _Fuck this._

“Fuck off Hargrove.” - Yeah. That’d do. No need for witty retorts when your head is spinning and the guy is an absolute dick.

Billy walked toward him, smirking. Steve figured he was probably remembering breaking Steves nose too. That had hurt like a bitch. He thanked god it had healed quickly; his face was far too pretty to pull off the damage Hargrove had left him with.

“What’s King Steve doing out in the cold? In front of a middle school dance too? Is King a pervert? Should I be calling Chief Hopper?”

_Not the time to get into a fight. Not the place either._

“Fuck off”

“Is that all King Steve can say?” _God his voice is infuriating_. “Did King Steve forget how to talk when he broke his nose? Who did that anyways? I want to congratulate them.”

_… What the fuck?_

Steve just stared for a moment before repeating the words in his head out load.

“I said, who broke your nose, Harrington.”

Billy said it with all seriousness. The look on his face was telling Steve he was trying to screw with him, but not in that ‘I want you to tell me that I hurt you so I can get off of it’ way. This wasn’t some weird mind fuck. He was genuinely asking.

_What the fuck._

“You did.”

The words rang out in the cold air in a way Steve hadn’t quite intended. He had meant to impart more menace, less confusion. Billy stared back at him, his look of complete asshole-ness beginning to fade a little. He made a slight querying noise without parting his lips. Steve repeated himself, but again Billy didn’t say anything, he just continued to stare.

“You broke my fucking nose you fucking asshole. You tried to kill a kid then you smashed my face to shit. How the FUCK do you not remember that!?”

Steves voice had risen to a shout, the memories of that particular part of the particular night making his blood boil with a rage Steve rarely let come to the surface. Billy, on the other hand, took a step back, something that bore a remarkable resemblance to fear creeping into his eyes.

“HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT FU-”

Steve was cut off by a ridiculously loud cough – the kind that only can be mastered by teachers after years of teaching little shits who just don’t shut up. Both almost-men turned and saw a stern looking middle aged woman standing just outside the doors to the gymnasium. It then dawned on them that you weren’t meant to swear at the top of your voice quite so close to a whole lot of middle-schoolers trying (yet failing) to dance. The teacher made the Supreme-Cough again, and with one last look eachother, Steve and the oh-so-confusing Billy make their ways back into their cars.

Dustin clambered into the car just as the last song came to an end. He was grinning, just a little, but enough to ensure Steve that the evening hadn’t been a complete fuck up.

“Well? How was it?” Steve figured he’s better be a good friend and get this shit outta the way before asking what he really wanted to ask.

“Shit. And good. I get why you liked Nancy so much now.”

“What?”

“Nevermind.” Dustin smirked at him. “What’s with you? You look all weird. You haven’t been trying to think again, have you? You’re not build for that.”

“Shut up dipshit” he laughed, then bit his lip. He had been thinking, and no, it hadn’t gone well. He started the car in silence and pulled out of the carpark, heading back towards Dustins house.

“Well?” Dustin dragged the word out through his relatively new front teeth.

“Does Will remember the shit that went down when he was drugged? Like, not when he was actually passed out, but just before and after?”

“Yeah. He never talks about it, except sometimes to Mike or his brother, or Mrs. Byers. Why?”

Steve mulled it over for a minute before answering “no reason”, then dragging the conversation decidedly back to the dance, and filling up the time till he dropped Dustin off with mindless talk about how girls and love could be cruel. But as soon as the car door slammed behind Dustin, thoughts of Billy Hargrove drifted back into his head.

_Will remembers everything that happened surrounding him being unconscious on those drugs. Billy is a hell of a lot bigger that Will. The drugs can’t have fucked him up more than they had Will. But Billy doesn’t remember all the shit he did that night. He doesn’t remember breaking my nose or hurting Lucas or any of it._

_What the fuck?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The music Steve was listening to was Echo and the Bunnymen. I get its probably not at all accurate but its what I'm listening right now so screw it.  
> Also, I haven't proof-read cos its 2am and I just want to post this and go to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little chapter, focusing mostly on Steve and his messy brain, life and hair.

The Harrington house was almost always too quiet. When Mr. and Mrs. Harrington were home, their son would tend not to be, or, if it was absolutely necessary, he would keep to his own space. The quiet in these times was thick, the kind that only comes about when a group of people who should be able to talk to each other, ran out of things to say years ago. Most of the time though, it was just Steve, and normally this never bothered him. He liked this quiet. (Well, he didn’t hate it.) He used to be able to fill it with Nancy. Even if she wasn’t actually there, she could fill up his head. Nancy had to have some kind of magical powers. Steve was sure he’d seen them in her eyes. Nancy Wheeler had eyes so powerful, they could create and destroy just as much as that Eleven girl.

Now Steve didn’t like to think about her eyes - or any other part of her. It felt wrong somehow. Like he’d lost permission. (He also didn’t love the way the memories of seeing her with Jonathan Byers would creep in there.) He had tried filling the house and his head with music instead, but that hadn’t worked, obviously.

So yeah, now Steve Harrington had very little to fill the silence with. So the silence would fill itself. Screeching; the sound of his sneakers squelching into the tunnel floor; the yells of those little dipshit kids as the demodogs hunted them. His own internal voice too. That was something you’d never expect to haunt you in the middle of the night.

_No time. Fuck. No time. Gotta get Dustin outta here. Fuck._

Steve was alone in the house again. Alone in bed too, but that was a totally different problem – sort of. He got up, moving slowly about the house, flicking lights on in each room he moved through, not because he was scared of the dark, but because he had a tendency for tripping over furniture. He didn't bother turning the lights off either, he couldn't see the point in doing so. He reached up to scratch his head as he entered the kitchen. _Ew._ His hair was crunchy and sticking up in what he would have imagined to be impossible directions. It was time to slow down just a little on the product.

He reached the fridge and grabbed a beer and something to chew on.

_Billy Hargrove._

Not really the person Steve wanted to be thinking about in the middle of the night, but still a distraction, and one that would last him a while. Sitting on the floor – the chairs were just too many steps away – Steve ran it all over in his head again. He needed answers. He had seen Billy twice since the incident in the carpark, both times Billy had been his same total-dickhead-asshole-fucker self. But there had also been people around both times. He couldn’t exactly expect Hargrove to give anything away when there were witnesses.

Steve had actually discussed this was Nancy at one point. It had been weird at first; asking if they could talk, and then confessing shit to her when they weren’t together any more, but it slipped easily into normality, for about a minute.

“So let me get this right, the world was over run with monsters, which you fought and even killed, and there’s an upside down world, and a girl with superpowers… and you’re confused about some asshole who says he doesn’t remember breaking your nose?” She even gave him one of those ‘you’re a sweet idiot’ looks.

That had been comforting, for about two seconds, until Jonathan Byers walked up and Steve remembered him and Nancy weren’t together anymore.

He sighed and lay back on the floor. It was cold and hard, but his fucked up hair made a bit of a cushion for his head.

_Billy Hargrove. Angry. Dickhead. Buff. Garbage in tight jeans. Forgetful?_

That just didn’t seem to fit. Max had almost nailed his cock to the Byers floor, for fucks sake. Any normal guy wouldn’t just forget that. God knows Steve wouldn’t have been able to, even if he had had a sedative running through his system. So what the fuck was going on there?

\----------

It just so happened that at pretty much the exact moment Steve Harrington was thinking of Billy Hargrove, Billy Hargrove was also thinking of Steve Harrington. Billys thoughts were however of a rather different nature, and concluded in a much more final and satisfying way than Steves did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had to add that little end bit. It was impossible not to.


	3. Chapter 3

Nancy was worried. Steve kept zoning out. At first it was no big deal, just in class (so barely a change from the norm), but then he started going blank at weird times, like when he was meant to being focusing on basket ball or some shit. Then she heard from Mike that Dustin had told Lucas that when Steve was giving him a lift to the arcade one time, he went blank while driving. Nothing bad happened, thank God, he just drove strait past it, and didn’t respond till Dustin hit on the arm.

Nancy figured this was the time to talk to him, she’d been avoiding it, because, well, she’d been avoiding Steve, but now she had to put that shit aside and check in. The only time they’d really spoken to him recently was when he’d come to her asking about Billy Hargrove, and why he might forget smashing Steves face to pieces. To be honest she didn’t really give a fuck about Hargrove or his memories. The guy might be hot, and have one of the most incredible asses she’d ever seen, but he was also dogshit on legs.

She had felt sorry for Steve though, his pretty face had been really fucked up for a while, and she supposed it must kind of suck for him to know the guy who did it didn’t even remember. She also knew that with all that had happened in the past year, he had relied on her a lot - up until recently. Sure, he had never shown the same amount of pain, and he clearly wasn’t consumed by guilt like she was, but she knew he wasn’t the same as he had been before he fought that first Demogorgon.

The rest of them were somewhat lucky; they had people to confide in - people who understood, who had gone though it all with them. Since they broke up, Steve hadn’t really had anyone to talk to about it all. Okay, so he was the new star babysitter of Hawkins, but she totally understood that he couldn’t talk to a bunch of middle-schoolers about that shit, even if they’d all gone though it together. For a moment she’d considered asking Jonathan what he thought she should do about it all, then she realize asking her new boyfriend how she should help her old boyfriend feel better would be a little fucked up. And Nancy was trying to keep fucked up to a minimum.

\----

Steve was standing at his locker, utterly exhausted and ready to just fucking die. He’s had another super shit basketball practice, getting his ass kicked by Guess-Who, and now he felt like he might slip right back down into Hell. (He’d decided that’s what it had been. Hell. It certainly fit the criteria as far as he was concerned: underground, nightmare-ish, full of demons.) He kept freaking out that he’d get sucked back down there. He knew Eleven/Jane had closed the gate, but that didn’t stop the image of the ground suddenly opening up and pulling him down into that place from popping up in his head all the time.

But Steve was resourceful, and he had soon found a little way to drag himself back into the real world. It had, of course, come from the strangest of places – it was something Billy Hargrove ( _Fuck off Billy._ ) kept saying to him:

“Plant your feet Harrington.”

Somehow Steve found that running these world through his head when he was getting lost helped. It was also, in a super annoying and unfortunate way, helpful that he would hear the words in Billys’ voice. He supposed it was just habit. It didn’t mean anything. Billy Hargrove was most definitely NOT helping Steve to feel better. Though trying to figure him out could prove a good distraction at times.

The ground wasn’t stable. There was movement behind him. _So fucking many of them._

Steve gripped his locker door hard, closing his eyes and breathing in deep. _Plant your feet Harrington._

The air didn’t taste right. He shouldn’t breathe it in. _Bad. Not safe._

“Plant your feet Harrington.” He said it for real this time, only a whisper, but still loud enough for Nancy to hear him as she walked up beside him.

“Huh?”

Steves eyes snapped open. “Nothing” he muttered. “What’s up Nance?”

“I er-” she muttered, looking down, evidently uncomfortable, then she seemed to decide to just get it over with. She looked up into his eyes. There was that power again. “I wanna make sure you’re alright. I heard about what happened with Dustin in the car the other day. Are you okay?”

“Little shitheads” Steve snorted. “Nothing happened Nancy, I was just thinking and got distracted, that’s all.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“The Upsidedown?”

“No.” Steve sighed. It was actually true, he hadn’t been thinking about Hell then.

“Was it… Billy Hargrove?”

“What? No.” Steve was so not blushing.

“Are you sure?” Nancy said it with a tone of voice that Steve hadn’t missed. It was that ‘I’m only asking ‘cos I know I’m right but I don’t think you do’ voice.

 _God Damn._ “You know he’s started calling me ‘Princess Steve’!?” he growled it, but quietly, hoping to keep this new nickname a secret for a long as possible.

“Why don’t you just ask him what’s going on?”

“Nancy, the guy has less brain cells that those damn demodogs, and I wasn’t gonna stop half way though that shit to ask them stupid questions.”

She smirked a little. It wasn’t like she didn’t get what he was saying, but if the guy was bugging him that much…

“Besides,” Steve sighed “it really seems like Billy has no clue whats going on either.”

“So ask Max.”

Now here was something Steve hadn’t considered. Perhaps Max would know why her dick of a stepbrother had forgotten that night. She never seemed to want to talk about him though. Steve has been around a few times when the boys had mentioned him, and Max thrown the subject off with expertise. Still, it was a better plan than just wondering all the damn time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I've got the tone of voice right for either of them here, but its an interaction I really wanted to write out.  
> Also, thanks so much for all the kudos and amazing comments on the previous chapters :)


	4. Chapter 4

The opportunity for Steve to talk to Max presented itself far sooner than he had thought it might. He knew it wasn’t really the kind of thing to discuss in front of the other little dipshits, but he also couldn’t just ask a 12 year old girl to talk in private. Nope, Steve already got weird looks for hanging out with a bunch of kids he wasn’t related to anyway. But what was he meant to say to people to explain?

‘Oh well we fought monsters together so…’

‘I worry that they’re gonna go get themselves killed while fucking around with the gates to hell.’

‘They’re the only friends I’ve got left.’

Fuck no. Steve had two official reasons for being the main little-shit minder these days - one of which was bullshit, the other was true at least part of the time: his parents cut him off and he needed the cash; and Joyce Byers needed a hand. Today, it was the latter. Jonathan was having trouble with his car, Joyce was working late and there was ‘no way in Hell’ that Will could ride his bike home on his own from the arcade. So Steve had volunteered to drive all the kids back to their respective homes. Why not, he probably would have given Dustin a lift anyways, though it turned out Will and Lucas were riding home together.

Steve drove to the arcade just a little too fast. For a while he had been vary wary about getting stopped and searched, what with driving around with a small arsenal in his trunk, then he figured even if he was caught, it would be not big deal. Chief Hopper would understand. Just like he would understand about the switchblade hidden in the lining of Steves jacket, and the gun that Nancy kept hidden in the drawer beside her bed. Jonathan probably had weapons on him too. Still, there was no point pushing his luck. All of Steves weapons were well hidden, in fact, he kept making ‘improvements’ to his car in a effort to find new and better hiding places (and to maybe fit in another bat in the front, beside the drivers seat).

Max, Will and Dustin were all waiting outside the arcade for him; they knew he hated to have to have to actually go in there. Mike and Lucas had just left, and Jane/Eleven was having a movie night with her newfound father, Chief Hopper. The arcade never really was her place anyway.

“Get in dipshits” Steve yelled as he skidded to a stop. Max, Will and Dustin all began to fight for the front seat, like they always did, and just like he almost always did, Steve told them do just “get the fuck in the back”. After the he was dragged unconscious into a car driven by a 12 year old girl, he no longer trusted them to go near the steering wheel.

They dropped off Dustin first, as his house was closest, then Will. When it was just Max and Steve in the car, heading towards Max’s house, which was furthest way, Steve finally brought up what he’d been thinking about for so long:

“Hey Max, you know your brother-“

“Step brother. Yeah. What about him? Did he try breaking your face again?” She said it in an off hand kind of way, clearly not wanting to talk about him.

“No." _Well, not yet._ "But, um, I don’t think he remembers the first time.” Steve spoke cautiously. “Why wouldn’t he remember that?”

Max, who was now sitting in the front seat (after they had dropped of Will she had promised Steve not to interfere with his driving, and he had finally let her move from the back) only looked down, and muttered “maybe it was the drugs.”

“It wasn’t the drugs. Will remembers stuff from when he was on the drugs.” Steve bit his lip and kept his eyes on the road. Max clearly knew something.

“He just… forgets stuff sometimes. Like, when he gets really mad, you know, crazy-eyes mad.”

“So, that’s happened before?”

She sighed. “Never that bad, but yeah.”

They sat in silence for a while. Up until this moment, Steve had doubted a little if this wasn’t all just Billy’s idea of a joke. As he took the a turn towards Max’s house, he began to ask “Do you know wh-” but Max cut him off.

“I don’t think I should tell you anything else Steve.”

“Yeah, no, totally.”

They pulled up in front of the house and both simultaneously muttered, “fuck”.

Billy Hargrove was standing out front, cigarette between his lips and a nasty smile on his face. He began walking toward the car as Steve shut off the engine and climbed out.

“Pretty Princess Steve? Is that you?” _What a fucking annoying voice._

“I’m just driving Max home so you don’t have to. Yeah?” _Don’t hit him in his own front garden. That would not be a good idea._

Max climbed out of the car and tried to push past Billy toward the house, but he stopped her, taking a hold of her arm.

“You like the young ones, don’t you?” _Ugh, fuck off!_

“We were just talking fuckwit.” Max yelled up at Billy before Steve could say anything.

Immediately afterward, she seemed to know this had been the wrong thing to say. Something flickered across Billys face. He looked from Max to Steve and then back again. Steve got the impression Billy was attempting to measure the situation.

“And what were you talking about? Huh, Max?” His voice was controlled. He was trying hard not to snap.

Max tried to squirm free of his grip and Steve took a couple of steps forward.

“Fuck off Harrington.” Billy said as he tried to keep a hold of Max and push Steve away.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t seen just how close Steve had managed to get in the last half second. Billys elbow collided hard with Steves face. None of them had been expecting this, and everyone inadvertently took a step backwards. Steve’s hands had flown instinctively up to his face, which hurt a fucking lot, and as he removed them, he saw they were covered in blood.

_Not again! For fucks sake._

“Really Hargrove? Again? Are you that jealous? Just because I’m prettier that you?” He tried to say it all cool and suave, but blood got in the way a bit.

Billy smirked. Not in the ass-hat way he normally did. It was like he was actually laughing at Steves joke, and somehow, Steve didn’t want to hit him. He actually seemed almost normal and human for a moment. He took a step forward, towards Steve, raising his hand and reaching forward as if to touch the wound he had just accidentally inflicted. Then there was a yell from inside the house, and they all jumped, turning toward it. A man was calling for Billy, who changed tack immediately. He grabbed a hold of Max again with one hand, and with the other he shoved Steve towards his car.

“Go. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to leave it there, but I just really wanted to post this and get it out there. I wish I could write longer chapters, and I'm trying to, but I always just wanna post shit right away.


	5. Chapter 5

Questions kept rushing through his head as Steve drove back from the Hargrove house. He knew something weird had just happened, and it wasn’t Billy accidentally hitting him (though the fact it wasn’t on purpose was a little strange), or the way Max and Billy reacted to his dad yelling. No, the weird thing was when Billy had that second and a half of being human. He had dropped all the insanity and anger and dickdeadness, and just smiled, almost softly.

_Why the shit was he smiling at me like that?_

_Holy shit, did I smile back!?_

_Was he going to touch my face?_

_Why does Billy Hargrove want to touch my face?_

_Did I want Billy to touch my face?_

_Do I want Billy to touch…_ \- and then, the most frequent and demanding question -

_WHAT THE FUCK?_

At this point the car swerved and Steve decided he had to pay more attention to his driving. He pulled over to the side of the road and took a deep breath. He was so damn confused. For more than a year now, his first instinct when this happened was to go strait to Nancy, but this clearly wasn’t the kind of situation that you go to your ex-girlfriend for advice on. Swearing quietly to himself, Steve put some music on and drove home.

\--

 -There was something coming toward them from the dark. A lot of somethings. The hole above them was closing, vines knotting over each other, blocking out the little light there had been. He clawed desperately up at damp, living ceiling. Too late. The somethings were getting close. Everything slowed down as he turned to Dustin. But it wasn’t Dustin. It was Billy. The human Billy, with the human smile. He watched, horrified as the demodogs launched themselves at him, tearing at his flesh, blood spattering everywhere.-

Steve jolted up, sweating and shaking. He couldn’t breathe. Or think. He scrambled his was out of the bed, tripping and banging across to the light switch at the other end of the room. He flicked the light on, and then just stood there, holding onto the wall and trying not to throw up. But he blinked, and in the millisecond that his eyes were closed, a demodog opened its flower-like face to scream at him, bits of Billys face dripping from its teeth.

Steve vomited on his bedroom floor.

\--

Steve stumbled in late to his first class. He hardly noticed the teachers remonstrations, and cared even less. This was gonna be a shit day. He was insanely tired and still on high alert. This wasn’t good. Tired was when the mental descents into Hell were most frequent and vivid. There was also the problem of Billy Hargrove. Steve was mostly sure he wanted to avoid him, because he had just had a fucking nightmare about the guy getting violently slaughtered, and because he still wasn’t sure what the fuck had happened yesterday – with that smile and the almost touch.

But then there was also a tiny part of Steve that wanted to see Billy in order to prove to himself the guy hadn’t been turned into demodog dinner.(And perhaps there was a super, most absolutely minute part of Steve - like, a single cell - that wanted to see Billy just for the sake of it. But that was only a maybe.) Either way, Steve had basketball practice at the end of the day, and chances were, Billy Hargrove was gonna be there too. He managed to get through the day without too much trouble.

Nancy came up to him in-between classes to ask him if he was okay, but he shrugged her off and Jonathan showed up to walk her to class before she could ask again.

\--

Basketball practice went the same way it always went, Billy was a dick and Steve wasn’t quite as good as he used to be (before Hell came to Hawkins). Afterward Steve was kept behind by the coach, who gave him a talk on ‘keeping his head in the game’ and shit like that. By the time Steve got to the showers it looked like all the other boys had left. He turned the hot water on and stood there, reviling in the first moment of serenity he’d had all day.

A hand caressed his lower back, sliding down to grab a tight hold of his ass. Another hand slipped around his body, holding his chest tightly as he felt warm breathe on this neck. The mans body pressed onto his. He could feel no fabric, just skin, hair and warmth.

“Does our Pretty Princess Steve want to have some fun?”

The hand on his chest slid slowly downward. The lips that had been just resting on his skin parted and teeth took a bite of his shoulder, just hard enough to leave a mark.

Steve’s hands had been resting on the shower walls, but he let go and turned, now face to face with Billy Hargrove, their bodies pressed lightly together. Steve stared openly at him as Billy moved to kneel in front of him. They barely broke eye contact, even as Billys lips parted and took in Steves already hard cock. It was like some stupid staring contest, see who would break first, and Steve was getting the impression it would probably be him.

Billy fucking well knew what he was doing. He moved with a fluidity and confidence that none of the girls Steve had been with had ever showed. Steve couldn’t help it, he closed his eyes and knotted his fingers in Billys wet hair. A tightness was building in him. _Fuck._ He couldn’t hold on for long. Billy was moving fast and with more enthusiasm, saliva was covering the base of his cock. Steve bit his lip, moaning softly.

A voice rang out loudly from outside the changing rooms, they couldn’t hear clearly enough to know what it said, but Steve recognized it immediately as Nancy. She must have been waiting for him.

_Fuck. FUCK! If she comes in…_

Billy slipped off him and turned wide eyed toward the noise, Steve saw that his hand was on his own cock – he had been jerking himself off as he blew Steve.

Nancy called out again, this time close enough for them to hear Steve’s name. Billy grinned a dirty grin as he turned back to Steve. He licked his dark pink lips slowly.

“She wont come in here. Lets finish, shall we?” his voice was quiet but wicked, the kind that normally would have made inspired revulsion in Steve, now it only fuelled his arousal.

He nodded, and in a single movement, Billy took him into his mouth entirely. This time Steve kept his eyes open, he watched Billy, intrigued by the way he evidentially enjoyed his task. He began to thrust his hips, first slowly, just meeting Billys movements, then faster and faster until he was essentially face-fucking Billy. He came hard, biting into his lower lip to keep from crying out, and astonished that Billy swallowed. Billy finished a moment later, Steve’s cock still in his mouth. Then pulling off him, he stood beside Steve under the water. He smiled as he wiped the cum from his chin. Then he turned and walked away.

Steve stood under the water a little longer, til Nancy’s voice rang out again and his brain flickered on enough for him to turn the tap off.

\--

As he walked out of the changing room, now fully dressed, Nancy met him.

“Hey, I thought I’d just check you were okay. You’ve looked kind of off today. Ugh, and I just saw Billy Hargrove leave. What a dick.”

“Yeah,” Steve muttered quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the second half of this chapter ended up being way more difficult to write than I would have thought. At first I wasn't even gonna put in that scene, at least not in so much detail, but a friend said it was absolutely 100% necessary. I hope it doesn't read as awkward as it was to write.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been leaving comments! Please continue to do so!

When Steve had first entered the Byers house, meeting a world of unimaginable supernatural chaos, he had though this was the most confused he would ever be. In fact, the only thing he had been sure of was that shit couldn’t get more confusing than that. He was right, but only by a very, very little amount.

_I was just sucked off by Billy Hargrove._

No. He didn’t believe it. Except, he did. Because it had happened. He still remembered the feeling of Billys mouth on him.

Steve had gotten home to the unpleasant reality of his parents also being there. He had never in his life wished them to disappear so hard as he now did. He couldn’t think over this while they were there. And he really needed to think. He needed to figure out what the fuck had happened.

_What the fuck happened?_

He was lying on his bed, still fully clothed, all the lights on. He was hungry, but wasn’t able to move. It wasn’t something his brain was yet able to handle. It hurt his head trying to think so much. He wished desperately he could just ask Nancy. But ask her what? What question was there to ask? And what could he ask without giving away the fact that he had just been sucked off by BILLY FUCKING HARGROVE.

He felt slightly sick when he remembered what Billy had said and done that night at the Byers house. The look in this eyes had been genuinely psychotic. But then Steve thought of the time just a couple of days ago when Billy had smiled that human smile. When his eyes hadn’t been filled with malice or insanity, but had been wide and inviting. And then there was the look on his face a second later, when his father had yelled out to him. That look Steve had seen before, he had seen it in the parking lot out side the Snowflake dance, when Billy first realized he had been the one to break Steves face - when he realized he didn’t remember it. Steve thought it might have been fear.

He tried ignoring the individual and just focusing that it had been a guy. He had never questioned his sexually; he had never been attracted to a guy. But thinking about the body that had been with him in that shower, well he definitely wasn’t not attracted. Then he thought about Nancys body, the curves and softness. His attraction here was nothing less than fact.

Steve rolled onto his side and closed his eyes; he saw Billy looking up at him, eyes wide and hungry. The thought about the extremes Billy seemed to rock between, the anger, malice and insanity he was full of so much of the time, and then the look he would get in his eyes, that was vulnerable and open. Neither one was a front, nor fake, Steve was sure of that.

\--

For the first time in what felt like for-fucking-ever, the sun was doing its job. It shone down on Steve with a force that many had given up hope would even return. But of course it did. And today, it did so especially for Steve Bloody Harrington, the guy who was just rolling with it now, the guy who hadn’t had a nightmare in four days (and counting), the guy who just couldn’t be any damn cooler.

The radio in his car was playing loader than usual, because it had to contend with Steve being in a different position than usual; he was lying on the hood, sunglasses on and fingers tapping away to the music. He was waiting for someone, and fully ready to give off a super chill impression. He might have arranged this meeting, but any bystander would think he had barely bothered with it. And so when the person Steve was waiting for finally arrived, he found it impossible to refer to him as ‘Princess Steve’.

“What’s up Harrington?” Billy called as he got out of his car.

Steve smiled at the improved style in which he was now addressed. _About fucking time._

“Hey Hargrove” he drawled, turning his head towards Billy. “

Well?” said Billy, “What?”

“Do to you remember getting on your knees for me?” He asked, a bit more bluntly than he intended.

“Do you remember sucking me off?”

Billy scowled and looked furtively around, though they both knew there was no one for a good mile. That was why they had chosen this spot to meet.

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t remember pummeling my face. Why?” Steve sat up and turned fully towards Billy as he spoke.

“None of your fucking business.”

“You broke my face, forgot about it, then sucked my cock. I feel like it’s a little my business.”

Billy smiled a little at this - not all soft, but also not a shit-eating grin, this was somewhere in between – Steve liked this smile.

“Well?” Steve said.

Billy hopped up onto the hood of his own car, sitting facing Steve. He ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking. “Maybe it just wasn’t worth remembering.”

Steve shook his head. “Nope. Try again.”

“Why do you even give a shit?” Billy was pissed now.

“Like I said, you broke my face. Then forgot about it, then-” Billy cut him off.

“Yeah, but it can’t be the first time someone’s done that, fucker like you.”

Steve just shrugged at that, he couldn’t exactly deny it.

“What I wanna know,” Billy continued, the superiority climbing back into his voice, “is how you lost your title at school. You used to run that place, now you’re nothing.”

“Doesn’t matter.” This wasn’t what he was here to talk about.

“There has to be a reason.” Billys grin was now reaching infuriating levels.

“I don’t wanna fucking talk about it.” Steve scowled.

“Then lets not talk.” Billy said, hopping down from the hood of his car and undoing his belt.

_Fuck it._

Steve hopped down too, walked up to Billy and began to lean in when Billy said “Kiss me and I’ll kill you.”

“Get in the car then” Steve said, sticking his hand down Billys jeans.

\--

 _Next time we’re just gonna talk, and I’m gonna get some fucking answers._ Steve thought as he drove home. He was being driven crazy by the constant lack of answers. (Admittedly it was a better kind of crazy than seeing monsters everywhere, but still.) He was also confused at the whole guy-fucking thing. But that was at least a problem that also provided considerable satisfaction. He supposed that by comparison, his current problems were barely problems at all. He had at times fought actual real monsters. But at least then he had known where he stood. Those things just needed killing. That was it. No pondering the issue. Fuck. Perhaps Dustin was right. Perhaps Steve just wasn’t built for thinking a whole lot.

\--

As Billy drove back to his house, he thought about how he would probably now need to clean the interior of his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was meant to be longer, but again I just want to upload and sleep. Also, their discussion was meant to go on a bit more, but I just felt like this was the natural evolution.   
> With this fic I was first really feeling the whole Harry/Draco dynamic of Half Blood Prince, but now I'm getting more of a Ian/Mickey from shameless US vibe. What do you guys think?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think this might be my worst written chapter so far. I've been rewriting parts of it over and over, and I'm still not happy with a lot of it, but I haven't uploaded in while and I'm too tired now, so this is what you get.

Someone was having a party, Steve wasn’t sure why, or who for that matter, but that didn’t matter, point was there was gonna be beer and everyone was going. (Everyone including Billy Hargrove, but Steve totally didn’t care about that either.)

For the first time in party history, Steve ended up on the peripheral. He supposed this was to be expected, after all, this was his first party where he was both not popular and without a girlfriend. He had to admit, he didn’t love it. He wound up sitting on an old milk crate outside, beer in hand, trying not to stare at a certain someone in the crowd of popular drunk teens. There was at least a mercy in all this, both the beer and music were good. Whoevers party this was (he still wasn’t entirely sure), they hadn’t skimped on the important shit.

Nancy plonked down on the crate next to him.

“I think there's someone you like over there” she said, waving her free hand to the crowd of popular kids in the center of the party. She slurred he words slightly, just enough for Steve to know the beer in her other hand wasn’t her first.

“Where’s Jonathan?” Steve asked, avoiding her statement blatantly.

“He was here for a bit, but this isn’t his scene. I told him he could go home. Now stop avoiding the question.”

“You haven’t asked me a question yet Nancy.” Steve said with a smile.

“Oh.” She frowned to herself for a moment. “Who is it you’re into?”

“No one, Nancy.” He sighed, and took another sip of his beer.

“Come’n Steve” she moaned “Just tell me who she is.”

Steve couldn’t help himself, he smiled. “Why don’t you, Nancy" he called, regaining her attention from the bug on her shoe that she had started glowering at. "Why don’t you try guessing, and I’ll tell you if you get it right.”

“Okay!”

Steve spent the next couple of hours wondering around the party with Nancy, she made guesses about who Steve might like (all of them very wrong) and they both discussed the possible implications of what such romantic choices might have for Steve. Not once was the word ‘bullshit’ mentioned by either of them. It was all up a much better party for Steve than the last one he had gone to. 

Steve was starting to enjoy spending time with Nancy again. Now that he kind of maybe liked someone else, he didn’t feel guilty spending time with her, and the pains of seeing her with Jonathan were fading more and more too.

\--

Steve was lying on he hood of his car again, this time Billy was beside him. Billy was chain smoking, something it seemed he found absolutely necessary after sex. Steve hated it, but he wasn’t dumb enough to tell Billy that. He just turned his head away instead. He was far too relaxed to bother anyway. They had slipped into a wonderful pattern, one that involved little talking and no answers, but Steve didn’t care.

Steve closed his eyes. He could hear Billy breathing. He could feel warmth radiating down on him, and up from the metal of his car. He could also feel the warmth of Billys body, though they weren’t actually touching. Everything was so serene.

-He was walking in the woods, it was night. He walked up, up, until he hit the train tracks. There was blood trailing along the middle, and chunks of something, it looked like flesh. He followed along it. There was no noise but the rustle of dead leaves beneath his feet, and the thudding of his heart. The trail of blood was getting thicker. More of it. Someone was rasping up ahead. Gasping desperately for breathe. He ran towards the sound, right into the clearing, with the abandoned cars and school bus.

It was Dunstin, covered in blood, his insides spilling out through the massive hole in his torso.  Something was coming out of the shadows. Steve gripped the bat in his hand tighter. Lots of somethings. _Shit._ The were bounding toward him fast. He raised his bat. Flower faces unfolding. Teeth dripping in blood-

Steve lauched himself up, lost balance, and crashed onto the ground. He retched, and clawed his fingers into the dirt. He could still see the demodogs, hear them running toward him, and Dustin, rasping for breath. The ground was spinning. He couldn’t get the air into his lungs fast enough. 

Billy jumped down from the car, dropping his cigarette without realising, and leant down beside the shaking Steve.

“Steve? STEVE?” Billy called, gripping his shoulder.

Steve came slowly back to earth. Pieces of reality were fighting each other as they tried to fit properly into his brain. He was still shaking as he sat up. He hadn’t had a dream that bad since the one where Billy had been eaten by a bunch of demodogs. He leant back against the car and hugged his knees in toward his chest a bit.

_Breathe. Fuck. How do I do that? Fuck. In. Out. Fuck._

“What was that?” Steve was too distracted to notice the note of concern in Billys voice.

He took in several more deep breaths before muttering “Nothing.”

“Bullshit that was nothing. What happened?” 

“I just… I thought I saw something.” He couldn’t look Billy in the eye as he said this. His heart was still banging so hard it felt like it was trying to bruise all the surrounding tissue.

“What? What could you possibly think you saw that would make you seize your way off your car like that?”

Steve tried to think of something to say to change the subject, and ended up finding the worst thing possible.

“Why are you scared of your dad?” _Fuck. Shit. Take it back. Shit. I’m a fucking idiot._

“None of your fucking business.” Billy growled.

Steve figured he was fucked already, so why not keep going. “Come on, Billy, I saw that day I dropped of Max, I saw the look on your face when he called your name.”

Billy glared at him, anger filling him up, making him look more and more like a wild cat, stalking its prey.

“I don’t want you looking at me and seeing that. You’ve already started looking at me wrong, like I’m human. I’m not.” He spoke fast and harshly, staring right into Steves eyes. “I don’t want you or anybody else using him as some kind of justification or excuse. I’m just a shitty person who does shitty things. I might not remember them all the time, but I still did it all. That’s who I am, yeah? I’m the one who broke your face. So don’t you dare go looking at me like I’m a good person just ‘cos my dad isn’t one.”

Billy got up and walked off toward his own car. Steve put hid his head in his arms, he didn’t want Billy to look back and see the tears. Not when they were for him.

He heard the ignition start and Billy drive off. It took Steve a few minutes before he could get up and into his own car. He was ready to drive off when he wondered where to. He really didn’t want to go home.

“Fuck it”

\--

Twenty minutes later, as the sun was setting, Steve pulled up out the front of the Wheeler’s house. He climbed up to Nancys window, the curtains were pulled shut, but he could still see the light was on. He rapped on the glass.

“Steve?” Nancy said as she pulled back the curtains and opened the window. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey Nance, I’ve got some shit to tell you.”


	8. Chapter 8

Steve climbed through the window, then found himself in the awkward position of being in his ex-girlfriends bedroom with her, at night, when he really wasn’t meant to be. He forgot for a moment why he was there, and just stared at her bed. 

“Uhhh, Steve?”

His brain flickered back on. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Steve, what is this? Are you trying to get back together or…” She trailed off, looking worried.

“No. Nancy, this really isn’t that.” He replied, then, seeing the look on her face said “And you don’t have to look so relieved.”

“Then what did you want to tell me?”

 _I’ve been screwing Billy Hargrove._ “Its, uh…” _And I think I might actually like the annoying bastard._ “Complicated.”

“Okay” Nancy said, sitting on the bed.

He scratched his head just to have something to do with his hand.

“See, I think…” _God, why is this harder than teaching a bunch of preteens to fight monsters?_ “I think I might be… Errr.... But I’m not.”

“Steve, I'm confused.” She said, with those big eyes of hers full of worry and compassion.

“Me too.”

“Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

_Just say it._

“I’m gonna go.” He muttered, and climbed back out the window before she could reply.

**\--**

Steve’s parents were leaving again in a few days, and he just couldn’t fucking wait. He needed to be able to think clearly, which would probably mean talking to himself out loud for a bit, and he sure as hell couldn’t do that while they were around. The talk with Nancy had freaked him out, he had come so close to telling her everything, but lost his nerve when he thought about the words he would actually have to say.

For a while now he had been not bothering to think about it, because there had been no need to talk about it. Why stress about a secret when its fun to keep?

\--

It is a very well established fact that Mondays suck, but when you’ve been kept on red alert all weekend because of a sudden increase of violent nightmares and recollections, and you’re trying to figure out your sexuality, but you’re too scared to tell your only friend (who also happens to be your ex), and you’re about to see the guy who you’re screwing (and might maybe have feelings for), but the last time you saw them they left you crying on the ground, well that’s when you start to think the universe just really has it out for you. 

Steve felt a lot like that when he walked into school, knowing (correctly) that the day was only gonna get worse, but not sure how it possibly could.

The first thing that made it worse was in his first class, when the English teacher called on him to answer a question. He hadn’t been listening to her at all, and he couldn’t be bother pretending that he had, so he just replied “no fucking clue.” Detention earned less than thirty minutes into the day. The next shit thing was when he got a test back and found out he had failed, but he had at least expected this.

The third thing to make Steve’s day worse was probably the worst one of all. He was just standing at his locker, staring blankly at the students walking past, when his brain came up with a new and exciting way to torture him; he started seeing demodogs. It wasn’t actually a hallucination, he wasn’t really seeing them, but he wasn’t quiet imagining them either.

He watch the demodogs chase down, kill and eat those around him. It felt like someone had cut out some possible future massacre and projected it badly onto what Steve was actually seeing. He tried to shake it from his mind, but there seemed to be a coup d'état going on in his head.

A girl with big, badly dyed blonde hair walked past. A demodog launched itself onto her, knocking her forward and ripping into her flesh. Blood pooled around her on the corridor floor. She scowled at Steve for staring at her.

_Well fuck, now I’m a proper psycho._

“Hey,” Nancy said, she had walked strait up beside Steve without him noticing. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I think my brain is decomposing and about to start leaking out my nose and ears.” He said, not taking his eyes off the spot on the floor where the blonde girl hadn’t been bleeding. 

“Alright, um…” she frowned at him, “I don’t really know how to respond to that…”

“How about by giving me a fancy new jacket and putting me in a secure room with nice padded walls?” he said with a smile, finally looking up at her face.

She shrugged. “I did consider that the other night. I still have no damn idea what you were talking about.”

“Yeah, me either” Steve said with a sigh, and he walked off to his next class. 

\--

The strange imaginings continued on and off for the rest of the day. He did manage to get an enjoyable little kick out of it when he watched Tommy’s face get violently torn off, but that was the only good thing to come out of it. He was still muttering “plant your feet Harrington” to himself under his breathe in a desperate attempt to come back to Earth as he walked into basketball practice.

It would not be worth describing in detail the events of that days practice; it is suffice to say that it was not the thing that made Steve’s life any better.

\--

He had just finished getting changed, and was putting on his sneakers as fast as he could, desperate to get the hell outta there, when Billy sat down nest to him. Billy was only half changed, tight jeans on but no shirt. Steve focused firmly on doing up his laces and not at Billys bare chest.

“Please tell me you’re not gonna keep getting worse, Harrington.” He said, laughing.

Steve sighed and leaned back, resting his head on the wall, as Billy pulled his shirt on. _No, don’t. Keep it off please._

“Lets hope.” He groaned with a weak smile.

“Hargrove!” _Ew._ It was Tommy calling. “Don’t tell me you’re friends with this psycho faggot.”

Steve didn’t even spare Tommy a glance, he just stared resignedly at the look on Billys face, holding his breath and waiting for the oncoming explosion. It took about four seconds. Then, with incredible speed, Billy was up and pummeling the freckled ass-hat into a bloody pulp.

Steve sighed. He really didn’t want to save Tommy from a beating, but he also thought there might be a genuine possibility of Billy killing him, and he didn’t really want that much either.

He grabbed Billy by the shirt and heaved him off Tommy, narrowly avoiding getting hit himself, then pulled Tommy up to his feet and shoved him toward the door.

“Just fuck off, okay.” He said, and watched as the guy staggered away.

There was a loud noise and Steve turned to see the tiles on the wall smashed and Billys hand bleeding badly. 

“I’ve got detention now.” He said and walked away.

For a moment he felt nostalgic for Hell.

\--

He walked out of detention an hour later, and made his way slowly up to the parking lot. He was oddly numb, like he’d used up all the shitty feelings he had for the day. He moved on autopilot, and was startled when he got to his car and there was someone leaning against it. 

Billy was surrounded by cigarette butts, and still had one resting between his lips when he turned to look at Steve. As he raised his hand to remove it from his mouth, Steve saw a bloody piece of cloth was wound around his hand. Billy put his cigarette out, inhaled deeply, took a step forward, and kissed Steve.

“Sorry. I should have done that a while ago.” He murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I didn't and never will describe basketball practice cos I have no fucking clue what its about even a little bit. And I didn't describe the fight scene in detail because I really don't want to.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some answers!! Not all of them though, sorry. Also, I haven't edited, cos I'm a terrible person who wants to sleep. Thats also why this is such a short chapter. I promise I'll upload again soon.

Steve had thought before about what it might be like to be kissed by Billy Hargrove. He had assumed it would be so full of passion and heat, almost to the point of aggression, just a precursor to sex. He was wrong. Billy kissed him with all the softness and compassion that his personality seemed to lack. It was as though he was trying to make up for all the bad he had done. 

They'd arranged for Billy come over to Steves house the next day, after school, then they’d be able to fuck in an actual bed, and just maybe, talk. Steve wished he could have stolen Billy away then, taken him home and pretended that there was nothing wrong about it, at least, nothing anyone else would see as wrong. But alas, his parents had one more night before they left for another business trip. 

\--  
Why couldn’t the day just fucking end? Didn’t the universe know Steve had a very important date that evening? Couldn’t it just hurry time up? Did he really have to sit through the worlds longest history class? 

Billy didn’t seem to be filled with the same kind of impatient agitation as Steve was, he was just the same as he normally was, a bit of a dick, pissed off anyone with brains. Steve couldn’t be so nonchalant; he spent far too much time looking anywhere but at Billy, then losing his train of thought and ending up forgetting what he was doing. 

He was just so fucking desperate for the answers to come. Billy had promised him answers, and he needed to not lose his mind completely before he got them. 

When the day finally did end, as all days do, and when Steve was finally home and had had a shower and fixed his hair, Billy knocked on the door. By the time Steve got down the stairs Billy was hammering on the door like he wanted to smash it down. 

“Okay, fuck. Chill!” Steve said as he opened the door.

“What if someone saw me waiting at your door?” Billy scowled at him as he pushed past him into the house. 

“They’d think you’d come to beat the shit outta me.” Steve replied as he showed him into the kitchen and handed him a beer.

“Maybe later” Billy grinned, taking a sip and looking at Steve with those eyes. 

Steve sat down on the cold kitchen floor and leaned his head back against the counter. Billy sat down opposite him. 

“Time for answers.” Steve said. 

“Right,” agreed Billy, “first, why are we sitting on the floor instead of, say, chairs?” he gestured with his beer to the dining set up across the other side of the room. 

Steve turned to look at it for a moment, then turning back said “that’s more just for display.”

Billy just shrugged. 

“So, how come you don’t remember that night at the Byer’s house?”

“I’ve told you, some times I forget shit. It’s only when I really loose it. I get mad and then everything just goes black.”

Steve frowned, “so what do you remember of that night then?” he asked. 

“I remember seeing Max in the window, and going into the house, but that’s it. What actually happened?”

With some trepidation, Steve recounted the events of what happened after Billy had entered the Byers house, making sure to exclude anything that related to Hawkins Lab, gateways to another universe, Eleven/Jane, demodogs, and other such crazy-ass shit. Other than that, he told it as honestly and fully as he could.  
As he spoke, Billy stared down at his hands, occasionally frowning to himself. It was only when Steve told him about Max drugging him and threatening almost smashing his dick with Steve’s bat that he looked up, and actually grinned. 

“Shit, I didn’t think she had it in her.” He laughed. 

“Alright,” Steve said, opening his another beer, “My turn, why are you such an asshole?” 

“Fuck off.”

“No, seriously. Why are you-” Billy cut him off.

“Because I’m hot enough to get away with it. My turn.” He seemed to think for a moment, then smirked. “How did you loose your crown?”

“What?”

“King Steve.” He said in a ridiculous, smokey voice. 

“Ha ha.” He said sarcastically, then, without looking at Billy he muttered “Some shit happened, and I just couldn’t anymore. I mean none of it matters, right?”

“What was the shit?” Billy asked, with an almost entirely concealed note of concern.

“It um, it’s not your turn to ask.” Steve said, defecting a question he knew he couldn’t ever answer. Instead he asked the first question that came into his head. “Uhh, why did you leave California?” 

“Next.”

“Come on! That’s an easy one.”

“Next.” He was resolute. 

“Fine. Why do you give Max and Lucas so much shit?” Steve had been intending not to ask this, partly because he thought Billy might get really pissed off, but mostly because he was scared of the answer, really didn’t want it to be what he thought it would be. 

“Fuck,” He growled, evidently getting angry, “Look, those little shits can do whatever the fuck they want, but they’re gonna have to fuckin’ deal with it when my dad finds out. I’m not cleaning up the blood.”

Steve was quiet for a minute while Billy calmed down, then he just said “your turn.”

Billy cocked his head to one side, then lifted his right foot and pressed it against Steves chest. “What’s with those freak outs you have? The nightmares and shit. You’re remembering something, right? What is it?”

“That’s more that one question.”

“Answer.” He said, pressing the heel of his boot against the base of Steves sternum. 

“I really can’t. Like, if you were dead, I couldn’t even tell your corpse.”

Billy put his foot back down again, and stood up. For a moment Steve thought he was just going to leave, but then he took his shirt off instead.

“So, are we gonna fuck, or what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I couldn't just ignore the whole attempted murder of Lucas, and I really don't want to write a racist character, so I've put in a bit of my theory here, that it's some kind of fucked up version of protecting Max from his dad.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After all the depressingness of this fic, I thought I'd give you a more lighthearted chapter.

Today, Steve had a purpose, a goal to work hard at; and that was to get as many dates to the party on Saturday as possible, or more specifically, to get more girls to smile and say “yeah, I’ll see you there” in a flirty voice to him than Billy could.

The bet had been conceived the evening before, at Steve’s house, when Billy had been complaining to Steve about how boring and all round crap Hawkins was. He had mentioned, among the comments about how hick-town the place was, and how there was fuck all to do, that he was “the hottest guy in the whole fucking town”. Steve had of course corrected him, pointing out that he himself was actually better looking than Billy - using his hair as the main point of comparison, and the argument had only grown from there. In the end they had decided to let the female population of Hawkins High decide.

Both of them had been using the ‘leaning with one arm against the lockers and give the girl a smoldering look’ technique, as well as the ‘look through the eyelashes’ one. While both these seemed to have a higher success rate for Billy, who had the advantage of being the mysterious new guy with a great ass, Steve had the advantage of actually knowing most of the girls in the school. He knew who would turn him down without thinking, and who was already dating someone. He also knew which girls genuinely might like him (not an inconsiderable number), and out of a desire to not actually upset anyone, he steered clear of those girls.

Throughout the day Billy and Steve had been muttering their numbers as they passed each other in the halls. By the end of the second last class of the day, Billy was two ahead, which seemed to have made him over confident, as proved by his attempted to hit on Nancy Wheeler.

Steve had just had a very successful encounter with a pretty blonde girl, who although she didn’t seem to actually like him, agreed to maybe see him at the party, when Jonathan walked over.

“Hey, is that Billy Hargrove hitting on Nancy” he said, not bothering to look at Steve, instead just staring ahead at the unwitting downfall of Billy.

Steve followed Jonathans line of sight and turned just in time to see the last remnants of confidence of Billy’s face vanish as Nancy began to yell.

“ARE YOU HITTING ON ME YOU GROSS CREEP?!” Everyone turned to stare at them, Nancy looked like she was ready to set fire to Billy, who took an involuntary step backward. “I would never date you, and I pity any girl who does.”

“Oh my god” muttered Jonathan, grinning widely.

“Yeah. God, I love Nancy.” He said without thinking, full of the glory of knowing that there was no way Billy would win their bet now, then turning to Jonathan he said “Sorry, not like that.”

Jonathan just smirked and said something about it being alright. Nancy walked up to them, having shook off Billy, and started fuming at them. 

“I cannot fucking believe that asshole. I mean apart from all the other disgusting things about him, I’ve seen him hit on like four other girls today. What’s with that?”

“He and I kinda have a bet going on who can get the most dates to that party."

_Why the hell did I just tell them that?_

Both Nancy and Jonathan turned to stare incredulously at him.

“And why the fuck would you do that?” The look Nancy gave him would be unnerving even if he didn’t know how adept she was with firearms.

He just shrugged.

“What does the winner get?” Jonathan asked.

_To be on the receiving end of some obscenely sexual acts._

“Fifty bucks.”

“Well, for the record I think you’re both despicable people.” Nancy said, then sighed and smiled. “But I also don’t want him to win that bet, so you can tell him I’m one of your dates. But no one else. Got it?” 

He grinned and nodded. He was still smiling to himself as he walked to his next class.

\--

In the end, neither Steve nor Billy went to the party, instead, they went to Steve’s house so Billy could paid up.

They were on Steve’s bed, Billy was on all fours above Steve, his hands holding Steve’s in place above his head as they kissed. He paused to pull off Steve’s shirt, and then his own. He leant back down, or rather, was pulled back down by an impatient Steve. This time Billy one hand to hold himself up while the other went roaming slowly and tantalizingly toward Steve’s belt buckle.

Steve knotted his fingers in Billy’s hair, and he bit his lip softly. His bare chest moved up and down rhythmically with his breathe. Billy undid the buckle, and as he worked on Steve’s zipper, his soft kissed moved from Steve’s lips to his jaw bone, then his neck, then collar bone, then chest. One of his hands slipped down Steve’s undone jeans.

Steve groaned loudly, so neither of them was able to hear the car pull up in front of the house. They did however hear the car doors slam. Billy jerked up quickly, both of them turned toward the noise.

“A neighbor?” Billy asked. Steve going to answer, but was prevented from doing so by the sound of the front door being unlocked. 

“Fuck.” They both whispered. Half a second later Billy was standing, pulling his shirt on and looking for an escape route. There was the sound of the front door closing and muffled footsteps. Billy went for the bedroom window.

“No. Don’t” Steve said in a quiet and urgent voice. “We’re on the second floor and there’s just concrete below.” He was up too now, doing up his jeans and pulling on his shirt.

“So?”

“So, best case scenario, you break your ankle. Worst, I dunno, your neck.” 

Billy looked for a moment like he was beginning to waver, then a voice called from downstairs. It was Steve’s mother, calling up to him that she and his father were home. 

“I’ll take the risk.” Billy said as he went for the window. Steve grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back.

“Save your death wish for another night. I’ve snuck girls outta here before, should be the same for you.” He raised one smug eyebrow as he said this.

“Fine.”

“I’ll distract them in the kitchen, you sneak out the front door. Easy. What are you doing?” Billy had turned his back on Steve and the bedroom door. He walked to the opposite wall and tore the down the poster of the blonde in a bikini from beside the bed.

“I don’t think you really need this anymore.” He said in a condescending tone, then followed Steve quietly out the bedroom.

Steve left Billy at the top of the stairs, and wandered into the kitchen, attempting to not look guilty of anything. His father was at the fridge, getting a beer, his mother was looking for something in the pantry.

“I thought you didn’t get home til tomorrow.” Steve said.

“Conference ended early.” His father said, not looking up.

The front door shut.

“What was that?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” Steve said.

He would have to collect his winnings another time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about not posting in over a week. Except not really cos I have other shit to do.  
> Again I have shamed my family - and my cow - by not editing this chapter properly before posting. But when it's 3:30am I just can't be fucked. Anyways, I hope you like this one, if you do, pls comment, I love reading them.

Steve stroked his fingers softly across Billy’s skin, all his mind full of him; his warmth, his muscles, the rise and fall of his chest. The gentle sound of his breath was all Steve could hear, all he wanted to hear.

Time wasn’t moving the ways Steve had become used to. For so long it had thudded past, crackling and blinking, leaving no time to breathe. And even when it hadn’t been doing that, it had felt strange, like it was someone else’s time, not Steve’s. Now, lying beside Billy on the hood of his car, time was finally treating him right, it moved slowly, heavily, like the way you felt when you tried to walk under deep water.

Steve hoped time would come to a complete stop, and just let them rest there, undisturbed. He hoped the world would go and fuck right off, and that it would take those other shitty worlds with it – the ones with monsters, and the ones in Steve’s head where the monsters had stuck around. But most of all, he hoped, or rather wished, that the monster haunting Billy would just stop. Of all of them, this last hope seemed the most impossible.

Steve could now identify which of Billys bruises came from his dad, and even if there were no visible marks, he could tell when they had been fighting, when things had been bad. He tried not to ever comment or ask questions, he knew Billy hated it when he did that, and it wouldn’t help anyways. It seemed easier for Billy, and by extension Steve, if they both just pretended it wasn't happening. They could act like the injuries came from basketball, or from fighting assholes like Tommy at school, or even just doing mindless and and stupid shit in general.

For a while Steve had felt so useless, like all he could do was watch. That had been shit, he had never been one to sit on the sidelines like that, as he had proved the first time he had picked up his (then Nancy’s) nail riddled bat.

He had even considered using the bat for a moment, but when posing it to Nancy as a hypothetical, she had said that the bat was categorically to be used on creatures from the Upside-down only. He had tried explaining to her that the person in question was in fact remarkably similar to a demogorgon, but she had pointed out that while Chief Hopper thoroughly encouraged the killing and maiming of monsters from another world, he would probably he to step in if Steve were to do that shit to an actual human, no matter how monster-like they might seem to him. Steve guessed that she had thought he had been planning on using the bat on Billy, as they had been determinedly keeping up the pretence of hating each other when people were around.

Then Billy had told him, with the reluctance that always came with talking about anything meaningful - or anything at all for that matter, that Steve did help. That was why they were on the car now, in a prefect silence, as the sky got darker and darker above them, because of the bruise blossoming on Billy’s cheek.

Billy had had his eyes closed as Steve had caressed him, but now he opened them, turning to look at Steve.

_Please don’t move. Please don’t bring us back to reality._

“I think I should go back now.” Billy murmered.

_No. Fuck. Come on._

“I don’t think you should. Ever.”

Billy turned away, hopping up off the car and pulling on his jeans and shirt.

“I'm not gonna go make things worse.” He said, not looking at Steve. 

“Okay.” He wished he could say something else, but like the boy he was too nervous to call his boyfriend, he didn’t want to make things worse.

Billy looked back up at him as he pulled on his boots, “You alright?”

“What? Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” Steve said as he got up and started pulling his clothes on.

“You’re still having those freak outs. I saw you jump the other day, when you were at your locker and that girl with the big cow eyes started talking to you.”

“Nancy” Steve said automatically.

“Yeah, well anyway, you looked like you didn’t know where you were. You get that look sometimes. Like you’re not here anymore. Like you’re somewhere… bad.” Steve hated the note of concern that had crept into Billy’s voice as he spoke.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m good.”

“Okay.” Billy let it go. Again, this was one of the many things amongst them that was best left alone, unsaid, for fear of making it worse.

As Steve drove home that night he thought about how shit and fucked up it was that Billy, who was the personification of a total fucking mess, would look at him with concern.

\---

Distraction had gone ahead and started stalking Steve, throwing at him homework and quizzes and extra babysitting duties – Dustin’s mother’s pet kitten had been de-sexed and while it recovered from the surgery she thought it best to stay at home with it, resulting in Steve’s driving abilities being in high demand.

In the beginning he was grateful, but then he started to get tired, and the more fucked up sides of his brain began fighting back against the distraction. Out of the corner of his eye he would see shadows that looked distinctly like that of a group of demodogs. He would be walking and the ground would get softer and more squishy beneath his feet, feeling like it were alive. And of course the nightmare made their appearances.

All in all, Steve felt pretty shit as he gave Dustin a ride back from the arcade one night, and Dustin must have noticed because all of a sudden he said “You look like shit, you know that right?”

Steve groaned. “You’re too young to be talking at me like my dad.”

“Are you still in love with Nancy? Is that it?”

“Damn you’re a nosy little shit. And no, that’s not it." 

Dustin squinted at him, like he was something under a microscope in his science class, just waiting to be identified.

_You should not worry the kid with the crap in your brain. Just stay silent._

“Hey if you notice shit’s ever about to start going down again, like Will is showing warning signs or Jane is doing her psychic shit, you’ll tell me right? You won’t wait till you need me to kill something for you, yeah?” He said it quickly and it what he hoped was a controlled tone of voice. 

“Well first of all, it’s not ‘psychic shit’,” Dustin began, but Steve cut him off.

“Whatever. Just promise me you’ll tell me.”

“Okay. But nothing is coming up. El, I mean Jane, she closed the gate.” Dustin said confidently.

“Yeah, but we thought that last time. Then there’s a shit tonne of demodogs climbing all over us. I just want a little bit of warning next time. No more ‘Hey I need you’re bat because there’s a bunch of shit you don’t know about going on’. Okay?”

“Yeah, alright.” Dutsin said, half grinning. Underneath his amusement at Steve’s paraphrasing of his asking for help, he seemed to feel the weight of Steve’s apprehension about the Upside-down being truly locked off.

For the rest of the drive they spoke only of relatively trivial matters, neither wanting to think about the possibility of the gate opening up again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is the shortest chapter I've ever posted, but 2 months is way too long and I promised I'd post soon and I just finished rematching it (again), so here you go. A little different from my norm (sorry for the accidental twilight vibes, don't know where they're coming from), let me know what you think...

It was pissing down rain, fuckloads upon fuckloads. It rained even harder than that it had in that storm the night after Will Byers had disappeared. To Steve Harrington this wasn’t particularly interesting, or even really worth thinking about much, except to groan to himself as he secretly wished he had listened to his mother and grabbed that extra coat.

He looked down at his feet as he trudged through the school car park towards the world’s most boring building. His leather boots were wet. He hoped they wouldn’t soak through.

Someone shoved past Steve. He could hear amongst the mess of teen voices, Nancy was talking to Jonathan somewhere behind him. He felt a sudden wave of loneliness, not for Nancy in particular, just for people in general. He had used to have friends - admittedly they were all complete assholes and spending time with them had made him an asshole too. And yeah, it had been the right thing to give up them for Nancy, even though it hadn’t lasted with her. He just wouldn’t have minded having someone to walk to class with.

Billy was also in the mess of kids approaching the school, behind Steve and a little to left – not that Steve was keeping tabs.

_Fuck. Why is it so fucking wet and cold._

\-- 

“I mean how can they even play for that long?” Nancy asked incredulously, as she avoided a large puddle.

“Yeah, I dunno, I think the longest game they’ve ever had was a little over eleven hours.” Jonathan replied, grinning at her. 

“Shit,” she laughed. Nancy looked up ahead of her and recognized Steve’s back in the small crowd of teens pushing their ways towards the dry school buildings. He had stopped walking, and she saw his hands had curled into fists by his side, and his shoulders were rising and falling fast and hard, as though he was gasping in air. 

“Steve?” she called out.

He didn’t seem to hear her, he just shuddered strangely and crumpled forward. Nancy took a step toward Steve, but someone pushed past her so hard they almost knocked her sideways. They moved hard towards Steve, but only got a few paces in front of her before they stopped suddenly. It was a second before she realized it was Billy Hargrove.

He was staring down at Steve with an odd look on his face. It wasn’t malice or even amusement, through she definitely wouldn’t be surprised if that asshole had started laughing at Steve in this moment, (in fact she was ready to try kicking the shit outta the guy if he did start laughing, despite him being way bigger and stronger than her). This only lasted about a second, then Billy seemed to snap out of it, and he just turned and walked right past Steve. 

Moving right passed this little bit of weirdness, Nancy hurried to help Steve up, even as he tried to brush her off and act like everything was fine.

\--

_Note to self:_

_Do not lose your fucking mind at school._

_Do not collapse where there are actual people._

_There are no more scary monsters and even if there are do not go around looking like some pathetic idiot in front of the whole school. You know how to kill these things, you're good at killing these th-_

“Are you sure you’re alright?” 

Nancy just would not give it a rest. They had got through two classes and it had even stopped raining, but she was still looking at him like an abandoned puppy with only three legs. Jonathan had also showed a little concern at first (well, he had frowned in a particular kind of way) but fortunately that had faded within a few minutes.

“Come on Nance” Steve whined at her, looking around to see if anyone was looking. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, okay. But you know, it’s not my fault for being a bit worried. It looked kinda scary. Hell,” she laughed, “even Billy Hargrove looked worried for about half a second.”

“What?” Steve asked, a bit too sharply and much too loudly.

“Yeah.” Nancy said, evidently confused at his outburst. “But like, only for a second, then he just walked past. He was probably just pissed you got in his way.”

“Yeah. Right.” Steve muttered.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm sorry for not posting for ages, I guess I'm just an unreliable shitty person. Not sure it this chapter is in character, but at this point, who cares? There's fluff and angst and thats all that really matters sometimes.

Due to a series of events that were not Steve’s fault – and not at all caused by wild and slightly experimental sex with Billy Hargrove – the lamp in Steve’s bedroom was broken, and as the light in there was pretty shit at doing the thing it was designed for, Steve was forced to do his homework downstairs in the living room. This forced placement was especially painful, not just because of the minimalist furniture that was impossible to get comfortable in, but also because his parents were actually at home. His father was watching TV, and his mother was attempting to keep up the illusion of a marriage by sitting beside him and pretending to watch it as well. The TV was too loud, by Steve wasn’t stupid enough to ask his dad to turn it down, so he just focused on the essay he had to write and tried to shut it out. It was working too, he had gotten through the worst of it and wondering if it would be worth asking Nancy to read it over the next day, when something very small happened and shattered Steve’s relative peace.

A new advertisement came on the TV, except it was more of a public service announcement. Steve didn’t hear the beginning of it; he only really registered the intense and dramatic tone of the voice-over, but then his father snorted.

“Fags.” He said loudly.

Steve couldn’t help himself, he looked up at his father and the TV. On the screen the was only one word displayed in big, dramatic font; AIDS.

“Think of the money they’re wasting, and saying ‘we’re all in danger’. Bullshit. It’s a fags disease-”

Steve didn’t stick around to hear the rest of his fathers rant. He slipped silently up to his dark bedroom, to try not to think or feel anything at all.

\--

The next day wasn’t set up to be much better, for starters Steve had left his essay on the dining room table, and though it wasn’t due until first period the next day, this meant he wasn’t able to get Nancy to look over it for him. Secondly, he had passed Billy in the halls on the way to his locker, and Billy smashed into him hard, smirking loudly when Steve only narrowly avoided crashing into a pretty girl collecting her books.

_What the fuck._

Okay, so he kind of got it, when they had first managed to actually talk, Billy and him had agreed that they couldn’t appear any different when they saw each other in public, but damn, did he have to hit so hard.

Steve waited until after basketball practice - which had also been unnecessarily violent, and until the changing room and showers had been cleared, to approach Billy. He was half naked, drying his hair.

_DO NOT GET DISTRACTED HARRINGTON! You are here to talk. Not fuck._

“What the fuck is up with you, Hargrove?”

Billy whipped around, he has clearly thought he was the only one left in the changing rooms. His face cleared of surprise quickly though and he smiled a dirty smile, the kind that had previously made Steve think Billy needed locking up in a mental institution, but now made his lower gut squirm excitedly.

“What the fuck?” Steve repeated, determined not to be swayed by a mere smile.

“What?” Billy asked.

“Well lets start with the shove this morning. Then the elbow to the chest. I mean, what the FUCK?”

Billy’s smile disappeared and he turned away, apparently to finish drying his hair. “What about it?” he asked in a notably flat voice. “We agreed, it’d be weird if we acted like friends.”

“Yeah, but if you don’t hit me the whole school isn’t suddenly gonna go ‘hey, they must be fucking!’ You can just ignore me.” Steve was finding it hard to keep certain emotions out of his voice. Billy didn’t mind anger, it was after all what he was best at, but Steve was pretty sure that Billy wouldn’t stick around if any of the hurt crept into his voice.

“No, I cant.” He still wouldn’t look at Steve as he pulled his shirt on.

_What?_

“What?”

“I can’t just ignore you. It doesn’t work.” Billys voice was still strangely flat, like he too was trying to keep the emotion out of it.

Something clicked in Steve’s brain.

“Are you talking about the other day when I- well, when I was going into class and had that almost freak out?”

Billy didn’t answer.

“Nancy said you looked like you were gonna help me or something. Well, actually she said it looked like you were gonna hit me.”

Billy finally turned around. He was smiling, but only a bit, and it was a weird one.

“When you’re like that and it’s just us, I’ve helped you up before. Then you go and freak out at school and for a second I was insane enough to think I could go up and help you or some shit. So yeah, when there’s people around now, you’re back to being King Steve and I hate you.”

_Shit._

“Okay, I get it. I don’t want anyone to find out either.” Steve said in his shitty attempt at a comforting voice.

“No. You don’t. If anything gets back to my dad, I’m dead. So how about this is over.” He said, still flat, then he turned and began to walk away. For a second Steve just stood there, then his brain seemed to kick him, and he rushed after Billy, stopping only to grab his jacket.

“Hey!” Steve yelled.

“Fuck off.” Billy hissed, turning to glare at him. “There’s people.”

“No there aren’t, everyone’s gone home.” It was true, the school was deserted. “Listen, I really fucking don’t want anyone to know. Okay? No one. So you can shove me and hit me and call me King Steve when there’s people. I’ll shove back. Just don’t-”

_Don’t tell him how much it hurts._

Billy look down.

“We wont fuck in school anymore.” Steve said, quieter now, and taking a step forward towards Billy, who didn’t step back. “We can do whatever to make everyone think we hate each other. But I don’t wanna stop… This.”

He didn’t want to say ‘stop dating’, but ‘fucking’ no longer summed up the full meaning of their relationship. Billy stared at Steve for a long while, his expression getting slowly softer and sadder.

“When I was a kid, my mum used to say that I should never lie. It was always bad. Even lying by omission. She said the truth would always be easier in the long run. She had no fucking clue.”

“Yeah” Steve sighed. He wanted to ask what happened to Billy’s mother, but he knew Billy didn’t want him to ask. Whatever Billy was okay with Steve knowing, he’d tell him, anything else was too much - off limits. It worked the same for what Steve would tell Billy. So instead as they walked back to their cars in silence, Steve moved his hand so it was touching Billy’s. They weren’t holding hands, just touching lightly, but it felt meaningful, and Billy didn’t pull his hand away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE COMMENT - it gives me fluffy feelings and inspires me to write more


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is actually only half the chapter I was planning to write, I just don't know when I'll be to write and upload the other half, so I thought I'd give you this half instead of waiting what could be a really long time (from when I last updated) to put it all up. Anyways, hope you like this little bit, again, please please please comment.

Steve’s duties as the top resident babysitter of Hawkins, Indiana were again taking over his Friday nights – or perhaps tonight it would be more accurate to call it a taxi service. It had come to occasionally bother him that this was the indisputable proof that a bunch of middle-schoolers had more of a life than him. Even if it was totally lame and nerdy. ( _Like really, who the fuck wants to play Dungeons and Dragons for 12 goddamn hours?)_ Steve just couldn’t get how that could be fun. It sounded more brain-melting to him. In fact, he was pretty sure he would rather face up to another fully grown Demogoron again than play the game from which its name originated.

Still, no matter how nerdy these little dipshit kids were, and how much it said about the current pathetic state of his social life, Steve would be there to drive Dustin (or Max, Mike, Lucas, or even occasionally Will, if Joyce and Jonathan were both busy) to and from the arcade or each others houses. This particular night he was picking up from Dustin from the Wheeler house.

Normally they would all just ride their bikes home, but on this night it seemed the boys had all convinced their parents to let them play till 1:30 in the morning, and this had meant they would all – except Lucas – need a lift home. Steve guessed (quite correctly) that they had all had to make considerable compromises to get their parents to allow this. He didn’t really get why they didn’t all just sleep over at the Wheeler house, he gathered it had something to do with a recent incident involving sleep deprivation, a broken vase, Holly Wheeler needing stitches, and a very angry Mrs. Wheeler.

Steve pulled up in front of the house about a quarter of an hour earlier than Dustin had told him to get there. He hadn’t meant to be early, he just always seemed to drive faster in the dark. He felt a slight pang as he looked up at Nancy’s window and remembered all the times he snuck in and out. Sneaking around like that seemed so easy, looking back. He missed the times when the possibility of getting caught didn’t mean the destruction of his life, and that of the person he was sneaking around with.

He was still lamenting on this when a car pulled up behind his in a way that was loud and obnoxious for the middle of the night in suburbia. He turned to watch the driver climb out and slam the door behind him.

“King Steve, what are you doing here?”

Steve grinned, he knew Billy was only calling him ‘King Steve’ because he thought people might overhear them. “Picking up Dustin. You?”

“Have to pick up Max” Billy said as he lit a cigarette and leaned back against the car beside Steve.

“I didn’t know she went to these things. Does she actually play with them or?" 

“How the fuck would I know?” Billy asked, exhaling smoke into Steve’s face.

“Yeah, okay.” Steve smirked. He knew Billy had basically no interest in his step-sisters life.

“Hey,” Billy said, a little more quietly, as he turned his body to face Steve. “You still on to meet up tomorrow?" 

“Yeah,” Steve sighed, “but we’re not doing it in my car again, it’s always so fucking uncomfortable.”

“Well we’re not fucking doing it in my car. It took me way too long to clean the cum off the seats last time. You know they’re leather right?”

“It’s not about whose car it is. The point is its gonna fuck up my back, and I’ve already got carpet burn on my knees.” Steve scowled.

Billy was smirking, and he looked like he was going to reply with some asshole comment, when noise came from within the house. They both looked up, and immediately moved quickly away from each other as the door opened and Nancy and Jonathan walked outside, followed quickly by Max, Lucas, Will, Mike and Dustin. At the sight of Billy, Lucas took a sharp step away from Max, he said goodbye to the others quickly, and then rode back to his house. (He was the only one excused from having an escort home, since there was really no point.)

“MAX, get in the damn car!” Billy yelled, again having no respect for the sleeping neighbors. Max scowled at him and gave him the finger as she took her time saying goodbye to the others.

Nancy and Mike hovered at the door as the rest walked down to the street. Only now did Steve notice that Jonathan’s car was parked a little way down the street. He tried not to think about how he had been there, in the house with Nancy at 1:30 in the morning.

It was an incredibly awkward meeting, what with Steve seeing his ex girlfriend with her new boyfriend, while Steve’s own secret boyfriend, who he pretended to hate, and who the others actually hated, stood beside him, and they all waited for a bunch of preteens to hurry up and say goodbye to each other.

Dustin grinned his proud, toothy smile as a greeting to Steve, then they both flinched as Max slammed the car door and Billy skidded off. 

“Come on” Steve said, gesturing for Dustin to get in the car. He nodded at Nancy and Jonathan as he left, but he thought Jonathan gave him an odd look as they drove past each other.

Dustin immediately started gushing about the game, but Steve cut him off.

“Listen kid, it’s the middle of the night and I could care less about this.” 

“You mean you _couldn’t_ care less.” Dustin corrected.

“Huh?” 

“Saying you could care less means you care at least a little bit, saying you couldn’t means don’t care at all.” Dustin said in a superior tone.

_Dipshit._

“Yeah, whatever. Point is it’s half past one at night and I don’t give a shit. Okay?”


	15. Chapter 15

Nancy stood with an almighty power and strength, bookbag over her shoulder, her jaw was set and she had flames in her eyes. She looked ready to go to war. And she was, she was filled with so much indignation and anger and just damn pissed-off-ness, she could have taken out a whole army of demodogs with her bare hands. At least, that was what it felt like. She hadn't been this mad at someone she cared about since Mike had destroyed her favourite teddy in a 'science experiment/autopsy' gone wrong.

She was standing in the middle of the school parking lot, it was before school started, and cars were pulling up and parking all around her. Jonathan had given her a lift to school, but had left her to wait alone. They had both agreed he shouldn't be a part of this. It wasn't any of his business, and he didn't seem to care that much anyway.

 _Finally._ She scowled to herself as the person she had been waiting for pulled into the car park. She considered storming her way in front of the car as he tried to park, but she didn't trust Steve's driving skills enough for that, so instead she waiting until the car had just stopped before yanking the passengers side door open and flinging herself in. 

"What the fuck?" Steve started.

"Thats my question!" Nancy half yelled as she dropped her bookbag at her feet and gave Steve her dirtiest look. 

"Huh?"

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STEVE?"

"What are you talking about and WHY ARE WE YELLING?" Steve looked slightly scared and very confused.

"I'm talking about the T-shirt you were wearing the other night," she said quieter, trying not to attract more attention from the teens walking past the car. "When you came to pick up Dustin from my house. Jonathan noticed it."

The fear and confusion in Steves face only increased, and he shook his head slightly. 

"It was an AC/DC t-shirt. Jonathan noticed because I told him once that you don't like them. I was defending your taste in music. And I told him about how you don't like their music and you think they're creepy."

"They come from the upside-down." Steve whispered.

"No, they're from Australia." She corrected him.

"Australia is upside down. It's-"

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT." She cut him off before he went off on that stupid rant again. "The point is you hate AC/DC but you were wearing that T-shirt, and you were talking to Billy Hargrove, who is always blasting them on his car radio, who I saw almost help you up that one time, and who you've seemed kind of obsessed with lately. So, I ask you again; what the fuck Steve?"

Steve covered his face with one hand, while he turned off the engine with the other. He groaned painfully and leant he head against the steering wheel. Nancy couldn't bring herself to speak. She was somewhat surprised by the emotions with which Steve had reacted to her confronting him, although she supposed she shouldn't be. She hadn't thought about how what she was asking and implying might not be the kind of think you spring on someone. She had just been so mad. But now she thought Steve might look worse than when she had told him their relationship was bullshit - she couldn't quite tell, his face was still covered. 

Nancy waited until the school bell had rung (she didn't care about being late, this was worth detention) and carpark was clear of people before softly calling Steve's name. 

"Are you disgusted by me?" Steve asked quietly, his face still buried in his hands and the steering wheel.

Nancy sighed. "A little bit." She said, honestly.

Steve's body shook with what Nancy guessed to be a mix of pain and shame and other shitting things.

"Not like that. I don't care about that." she tried to be as soft as possible, in her voice and her face. Steve dropped his hands to his side and turned to look at her. She hurt for the pain in his eyes. 

"Really?"

"Yeah. Its just the Billy Hargrove bit that I'm disgusted by." Steve smiled a little at this, half in understanding, half in amusement. "But to be honest, I am also hurt that you didn't tell me. I thought we were friends."

Steve nodded a little. "I tried to. Do you remember that time I climbed in your bedroom window and said I was confused?"

"Yeah," Nancy grinned, "Why didn't you tell me then? Or any other time since then?"

"So, so many reasons." Steve sighed. 

"Okay, so I kind of get that, but Steve, why Billy Hargrove? He's so..." she couldn't think of the right insult, so she just made a kind of choking noise.

"You know, I was hoping that when you did find out, this would be one of those situations where the friend overlooks the many flaws and says something like 'as long as you're happy'."

Nancy laughed. "First of all, I can't overlook all those flaws, even if I had a stepladder, I'd still be too short. Secondly, I don't think, I mean..." she trailed off a little. "Are you happy? Or even sane?"

"Nancy." Steve groaned, turning away from her a little. 

"Come on Steve, I found a two month old piece of ham at the back of my fridge that has more potential than Billy Hargrove."

Steve wanted to throw a retort back at her. He wanted to remind her that her current boyfriend had taken creepy stalker pictures of them having sex. But he didn't, because that wouldn't help anyone. It all just hurt. So instead he just opened the car door, climbed out, and told Nancy it was time they got to class. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So its been a LONG time since I've posted, but for some reason I felt like writing today, so here we are. This has been a long time coming. As always I would love for you to comment


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